


The Future's Sold Out

by Daelin



Series: Darcy Lewis Crossover Bingo [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Darcy Lewis Crossover Bingo, Darcy Might Be A Merlyn, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6253033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daelin/pseuds/Daelin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis never needed a father, just her Mom. But just because you don't need something doesn't mean you don't want it. And Darcy wants to know why her mother left Starling City.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Future's Sold Out

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Our Lady Peace lyrics for "Is Anybody Home?"  
> "Goodbye, the future's sold out / there's no use screaming / who thought we'd ever get this far?"

 

Darcy Leigh Lewis had always known one thing, and one thing only, about the male DNA donor to her existence: “He was a charmer, and a cheat, Darcy.” Which was followed by one commandment: “Be glad he's not in our lives.”

For most of her life, that was fine by Darcy. Sure, she had the occasional thought. She wondered if her father remembered her, or thought about her at all. But her mom was awesome, and her grandparents were awesome, and she grew up wanting for very little.

But then the cancer came, and her mother was gone in a matter of months.

Darcy came home for the summer, watched her mother die, and then went back to college. What else was there to do? She found out she had missed the deadline for the only science class she had wanted to take (astronomy, because honestly, who wanted to sit through anything harder when it wasn't required?), and took an internship that next summer with an astrophysicist slated for New Mexico.

Her mother had accepted death with very little bitterness, and Darcy made it through two semesters with some grief counseling. Everything was far from sunshine and rainbows, and she definitely had her bad days, but she had her attitude and her family to fall back on (“only a phone call away, Darcy-girl,” her grandpa would say). New Mexico happened, and then Tromso happened, and it turns out Darcy would be able to graduate with online courses because it sure wasn't looking like she was going to be touching base in Virginia to sit for classes. She hitched her wagon to the star that was Jane and followed faithfully along, involved for the first time in something much bigger than she was. It was nice, and Jane was like the big sister she'd always wished she'd had.

 

Except something was still nagging her.

 

In her free time – AKA when data was being crunched and algorithms being run – Darcy started digging into her past, and into her unnamed father. She called up old college friends of her mother's for hints, she called her grandfather for leads, and she begged her grandmother for anything she could remember, please. They finally drew up the last name Merlyn, and told her that her mother, Diane, had been interning in the city when she came home to Seattle with the very first signs of a baby bump.

After that, with Darcy's computer skills, it wasn't very hard to dig up a name.

 

It turns out, somebody else was looking for her.

 

* * *

 

 

Tommy Merlyn was kind of an asshole, but then, Darcy was kind of a sassmaster, so she supposed they were as perfect a half-sibling pair that anyone could ever dream it. Tommy had been doing some digging into the time his father was absentee, and Diane Lewis's name had appeared a few times buried deep in some documents, and here they were. Assumed half-siblings. Neither really pushed the issue; Tommy, because he seemed to have his shit together, running a nightclub in Starling City, chasing the scene, whatever; Darcy because she didn't want to push, didn't want to lose this tenuous connection to another life. Another family.

Well, these things, and because chasing an astrophysicist around the globe and fighting red-tape with SHIELD about grant proposals and publishing rights was a bit more time consuming than she wanted to admit. She may seem cool as a cucumber, but that was just the way she was raised – roll with the punches.

In between conferences and research facilities she'd call him and they'd catch up – and the first time they Skyped, they'd both kind of broken down their formal walls and actually, truly looked at one another. Differences, yes, but the similarities. Their coloring was the same – blue eyes, dark hair. Skin that tended toward pale. Similar eye shape, strong chins, though his had a hint of a cleft. Single, only children, one parent each.

They'd agreed to do a DNA test in the near future, and both swore to say nothing to anyone. Darcy didn't want to ruin any lives – she just wanted to know if she'd found her family.

 

* * *

 

It had been a while since she had called him, and as she back-flopped into her hotel room bed, phone mashed to her ear, she groaned and dragged her free hand up through her hair. It unraveled the braid she'd put there, but she was done socializing with stuffed up scientists who expected a certain standard of dress from a top physicist's PA. She didn't care.

The phone rang, and rang. That was weird. Tommy always picked up when she called, even if it was to say: “Heyyyy, I'll call you back later, ok?”  
  
Finally, just as she was about to pull the phone from her ear and make sure she had chosen the correct name, the phone picked up. A strange voice answered, “Hello?”  
  
“Uh, hi,” Darcy replied, staring at the ceiling with a furrowed brow. “Is Tommy there?”  
  
There was a half-beat of silence and then a simple, “No.”

Darcy scowled. “Ok… this was Tommy's number, so I'm gonna have to ask who the hell this is.”

“I could ask the same question, Darcy. If that's your real name,” the guy responded.

“You listen here, asshole,” Darcy spat, sitting up on the bed. “This is getting really weird, and I'm getting worried. My name IS Darcy, and I know Tommy, so you'd better just tell me where he is before I get some police on another line to trace his phone and figure out what the hell you're doing with it!”

“My name's Oliver, and I'm a friend of Tommy's,” the voice offered slowly. Darcy relaxed her grip on the comforter.

“Ok, I've heard of you. Tommy's mentioned you, and you were kind of all over the news there for a while,” she relented. “The question stands, where is he?”

“He… how well did you know him?” Oliver was being more gentle than his larger-than-life tabloid personality portrayed him to be. Well, that and every single one of Tommy's stories.

“I'm not sure that's something I want to share,” Darcy said slowly, every one of her nerves on edge. “Whatever you're not saying, can you please just say it?”

There was a deep exhale, and then - “Tommy Merlyn is dead.”

Her eyelids fell shut, wetness gathering on her lashes. “No...”

“I'm sorry,” Oliver offered. “It was a few weeks ago. The funeral arrangements were made – I didn't know there was anyone I needed to reach out to.”

A knife twisted in her gut. “No, I … We were…” she had never said it out loud, not even to Jane. “We might be family. We weren't sure.”

 

Oliver might have said something, but everything was just ringing in Darcy's ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Woo, first story posted to AO3! So, you know, forgive me if I've royally farked up the formatting or some such (and I surely hope not to)! This is Day One of the Darcy Lewis Crossover Bingo challenge, and we pulled square 23, which for me was Arrow. Now, forgive me, I am only half way through season one so I chose to work with something very early on in the series. 
> 
> Canonical character death, so you know, just enjoy more angsty feels on top of what the tv show gave you!
> 
> DLCB - Day 1 - #23 - Arrow


End file.
